A Display that pays Tribute to a Physician and Book Binder

At a time when people were beginning to use plastic electronic devises to read, Dr. Heinz Fritzsche was tenderly selecting linens, paper and leather to bind the comforting objects we have all grown up with – books.

Dr. Fritzsche, who lived in Germany, visited Highland Park every summer to see his daughter Hanina Hanoch and her family and to give them his handcrafted volumes. This year Dr. Fritzsche died and his daughter, as a tribute to his life, organized a display of his tools and books for the Highland Park Public Library, 31 North Fifth Avenue, that will be in the main hall display case through October.

“My father, Heinz Fritzsche, was fond of the Highland Park Public Library,” Ms. Hanoch said. “On his visits with us he came here to look things up and take out books that he could not easily get at home in Germany. He called this library ‘Little Reginstein’ after the big research library at my university in Chicago.”